An Inability

I’ve got a right mind
To up and leave this all behind
But patience is falling short this time
And I’m just about ready to fall apart inside.
Cause I have truths hiding in every lie
Like all the open wounds inside every rhyme.
It’s a tough pill to swallow
To be so scared of tomorrow.
I see desire in her eyes
But I’m too scared to even try.
I know it’s pathetic
To be hypothetic
But I feel as if
If we did go through with it
It wouldn’t be what we had expected.
Or what she would’ve wanted.
I’ll be sure to be her least favorite
And this wall of silence creates such distance.
I’m starting to see a vision
Of her summers spent with her former boyfriend.
And I wonder if she ever missed him
In the middle of our conversations.
I wish I were more of a man of action
But I just don’t know what would happen
If I fall short
And let her down.
Doubt hangs over my head like a cloud.
It drenches my confidence
And it’s drowning, trying to swim.
I’m down
And I look up to her eyes
Thoughtfully noticing my inability to rise.

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”